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Location: Naples, Italy

Living in Italy with my husband, who is a civilian employee of the US Navy. I am addicted to books!

Monday, April 24, 2006

A blur of activity

Whew. . . I can't believe I have actually stopped moving for five seconds. I didn't think it was possible. It's actually the first time in about 48 hours. On Saturday, I went to a Volunteer Appreciation Party for my shelter. I've only been officially on staff for two months and they wanted me to go. It sounded like a good opportunity to mingle with staff and other volunteers anyway, so I went. I had worked the overnight shift on Friday, though. I kind of overslept and didn't wake up till 1:30. Oh well. But I woke up and had about 10 minutes to get ready for the party. But yours truly was kind of blown away. I won Volunteer of the Year! Can you believe it? I was so honored and totally surprised. I got a beautiful plaque, dinner for two at an Italian cafe, and two free tickets with Airtran. Woo-hoo! Amazing day.

After that, I immediately met Kim and the kids at the mall. We spent the rest of the night shopping for our trip next week. I didn't buy nearly as much as she did, but I did find some really cute things. I bought this smoothie at the mall (only 153 calories and no sugar added) and I added an energy booster. Okay, that was a mistake. I got home and I cleaned and studied and was unable to sleep. I stayed up until 2 am in the morning. This was bad since Sunday, I was supposed to work 7-11. Crazy double shift.

Okay, I knew that this week was going to be nuts. Seriously, you should see my lists of stuff I have to do to get ready for my trip. Plus, I have my final exam tonight. Sunday was completely indicative of how this week is going to go. Hit the ground running and don't even stop. Ever. I thought that it would be slow. Sundays at the shelter are usually slow. But, no. Of course not. There was drama with the residents. Drama with their children that I had to take care of. There were new residents and oh so many calls. Part of my cleaning the night before had been getting rid of my old pre-weight loss clothes (FINALLY!!) and loading them into my car to donate to the shelter (so I wouldn't have to do it at 6 am the next morning when I woke up). The women had fun going through all the donations and they loved the fact that some of the clothes used to be mine. Apparently, I have cute stuff. One of the residents is only a few inches taller than me so she really liked it. I'm just glad that all of my clothes were able to go to a great cause. They were all in really good condition and the residents were in need. Anyway, I did get a lot of studying done, but maybe not as much as I would have liked. I did kind of like that it was chaotic because it made the day go by so much faster. And when you're working a 16 hour day, you need a lot to do to keep you busy. I like chaotic atmospheres anyway. It challenges me. . . keeps me on my toes. There was one good thing, too. The client I was really worried about last week called me back today. She's been trying to call me back all week because she did really like talking to me. I guess everything turned out okay after all. Whew. Relief, much.

I was up at 6 am to get some more studying done for my final. Another night of very little sleep. Something tells me I'll be able to guess my way through it though. Luckily, I should be through with it in about half an hour or so. I'm not kidding when I say I have a million things to do this week. I'm going to try to find time to work out, but maybe all the running around I'll be doing will count, right? I have a list of things to do today alone. I should probably divide up my list by day. I know that sounds totally anal. But I'm a Taurus. We need organization and routine. I'm so excited about my trip! T minus 5 days!

1 Comments:

Blogger Luke said...

Good for you to be volunteer of the year! You're an amazing woman, Miss Cynthia, and have no doubt it went to the right person.

April 25, 2006 12:26 PM  

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